Catharsis, in Three Half Acts
by Valieara
Summary: Glinda, in the fractured reality and transience of dreams. Set around graduation, or thereabouts.


**Disclaimer: **I own nothing, Gregory Maguire, Stephen Schwartz _et al. _do; for fun, not profit; etc.

**Setting/Spoilers: **Um, no real spoilers, provided you're familiar with the original _Wicked, the Life and Times..._ Set in bookverse-but-not-bookverse.

**Notes:** The working title for this was _OMG I MISS MY ROOMIE, _which I think pretty much says it all. The half-assed catharsis here is as much for me as Glinda, so my usual attempts at precision are also rather half-assed and thrown out the window this time. Sorry.

oOo

There were often reassurances, if not recompenses, to be had in dreams: a transience of splintering forms to be had only in sleep. The more vivid there, the more disappointing upon waking.

This seemed to be the equation, proportion for equal proportion.

But there was more than one form of dream to be had, varied definitions and connotations notwithstanding; and those created in the waking hours by the conscious mind always seemed to grow into the most precarious, transmuting into something indescribably more fragile under her fingertips with every touch she tried to lay upon them, every fingerprint leaving a crack. Indeed, there were few things that were _not_ illuminated by the warm morning light, though the chintz of her tablecloth and the china of her teacup were distinctly at odds with this idea. She sipped carefully from said teacup, mistress of her delicate domain, a conscious parody.

There existed a multiplicity of kinds and degrees of fanaticism, as there did with loss and grief and life itself. Everything eventually stemmed from the emotion of love, as she had learned long ago. Everything loved, was loved, or was forgotten and shunned. Everything was derivative only was everything is applicable.

_Hold out_, her mind cried, for this form seemed able to apply itself to most daily contexts, whole and weary. Hold out, she thought each time, ironically; for could there not be a better way of life, a greater standard to and against which all was held? Could there not be any greater and more glorious standard to hang behind the splendor of her beauty and the vivacity of her spirit? Was this truly to be her life's worth, a unanswered question so carefully wrapped in her ignorance and intensity?

"I love you," she lightly told her roommate in another time, where life had gone uninterrupted by life, where blackbirds had not cried out and the world had gone on as it should have, and she was unaware of the non-happenings of both.

"And I you," it was returned, simply.

The mind was a tricky thing; and it did not do to forget this.

oOo

"That's it, then?" Elphaba asked, surveying the room.

"It appears so," Glinda replied, thoughtfully. "I think I shall miss this room more than I had thought was possible."

Glinda was half-expecting a retort about the shoddy woodwork, the drooping shades, the tiny chest-of-drawers by length-of-bed area they'd been allotted these four years, softened only by the tone Elphie had adopted over the years when speaking with her.

And that too was something she would miss, rather dearly, in fact. She couldn't bring herself to be quite surprised when Elphie continued in a philosophical vein.

"It's odd, the way the mind works," Elphaba ruminated, taping up the last of her boxes. "Attachment to things and places, almost as much to people and ideas; fanaticism in an entirely different form – places and things becoming synonymous with ideas or feelings."

Both sighed. There was something different, wrong, to the room; Glinda shook her head before she was able to identify it, drawn to the window without cause. Outside a bird _caw-cawed_ in time to the rattle of carriage wheels over gravel. It was cacophonous, this disharmony.

"We're graduated," she said instead.

"And I must leave today," Elphaba said, sitting next to her, chucking a bit when Glinda leant her head rather melodramatically on her shoulder, blonde curls spilling all around, but drew an arm around her nonetheless.

"You'll make the finest Eminent Thropp Oz has ever known."

"And you shall make a fine sorceress," Elphaba replied. "Now up with you, for I fear I shall cry if we continue in this state."

Obligingly, Glinda sat up, holding the weight of such a statement heavily but not unnoticed in her hands. "And Lurline forbid," she teased gently.

"Indeed." But Elphaba brushed away a stray tear from Glinda's cheek, perhaps with more grace and delicacy than required of the situation – and then, perhaps not.

"There, my sweet," she murmured. "Yes, you shall do nicely."

It seemed a reckoning of her very being, and Glinda took note of it well.

Elphaba rose the rest of the way, and willingly cast into an unwilling paradox of motion and shadows as she was, Glinda was reminded of a thousand nights by candlelight and days by rolling clouds and half-hidden sun. Elphie picked up the last of her boxes and began the downstairs journey, not even pausing for a moment in the doorway for a backward glance.

"You must promise to write me," Elphaba said, rather uncharacteristically.

"I don't know," Glinda replied loftily, affecting airs and genuflections she had long since abandoned, but never forgotten. "We shall have to see if and how it fits into my schedule. Perhaps we shall even be able to mete out a visit or two for someone of such prominence."

"Oh, shush, you," Elphie said, elbowing her. "What a use of the imperial _we_, what a rise in society graduation from university must bring to merit the conjugation of actions to fit not just one, but a plurality of persons in a single body! What grand import you herald upon yourself!"

"Of course, you idiot," Glinda said, ignoring Elphaba's antics and looping an arm about her waist once again as the boxes were set down amongst the rest of Elphaba's belongings. "Whatever else shall I do with my time but count down the hours until I am able to contact you again?"

Elphaba rolled her eyes. Glinda grinned impishly lest she cry once more.

"In all honestly, I'll come to Colwen Grounds as soon as I am able," Glinda said softly. "If you'll have me. I know you'll not have as many opportunities as you'd like to leave."

"Then I shall count down the hours," Elphaba replied, deadpan, but softened it with a smile. "I believe this is my coach," she continued unnecessarily, pulling her into a fuller embrace. "I'll miss you, my sweet."

"And I won't?" Glinda laughed, because damn it all, she was crying in earnest now. "Have a safe journey. Write to me when you arrive."

"And I'll inform you of the long exploits I'll undoubtedly have between Shiz and Colwen Grounds, all of which will likely involve bandits and thieves set to assassinate me and steal my money."

"I forbid you to joke about such things," Glinda said, muffled.

"Then I shall refrain." She pressed her lips to Glinda's brow, and disengaged herself.

"Hold out."

oOo

Two months after graduation, Glinda had arrived at her husband's home in the Emerald City, and sworn she could feel eyes at the back of her head, speaking a tragedian chorus of a redundant medley only she could hear or hope to understand. She'd ignored the porter's hand, and glanced fretfully about her surroundings like a girl driven mad. She'd smoothed down the front of her pleated blue chiffon skirt, and straightened her hat where it perched on her head like an overburdened bird unaccustomed to its own unequal proportions.

_Hold out, _it had squawked in time to a meter it couldn't know, the sound a banner flying high in the wind. _Hold out._


End file.
